Happy New Year!!!!

Okay, a few days late but better late than never.  I hope everyone had a fantastic New Year's!  We certainly did.  We spent ours in St. Augustine, FL, enjoying the 74 degree day, so we have nothing to complain about.

And, we're just back from a week long vacation.  So you know what that means, right?  Yup, the dreaded vacation photos!  I'll only post a few a day, so hopefully you won't be run down with boredom!  :)

The first place we stopped on our way down was Savannah, GA.  We spent two nights there....NOT enough time to enjoy Savannah!  We did the Historic AVA walk, which is voted one of the top ten in the country, and we can totally see why.  Here's a few shots from our walk...

Savannah's historic area is made up of all of these "squares", which are really, really cool.  They have a ton of parks in the center of the squares, each with different sculptures, fountains, etc.  And people really utilize them.  It was so nice to see so many people out, enjoying the parks, spending time with family.  It was a little cold (in the 40's) but at least the sun was shining!

After our AVA walk, we did a walking Food Tour.  We did one of those in Lexington, KY on our last vacation and are now convinced that every time we go to a new town, we're going to see if there's one available.  On this one, we got to eat in Paula Dean's restuarant (we got to choose one item from the buffet to try...I had the mac n' cheese, which was amazing...my hubby had the pulled pork, also amazing..and I am NOT a buffet eater!).  I was entirely too busy stuffing my face to take pics of any of the restaurants we stopped to though, so I am a little bummed about that.

But we did come across this neat cake shop on one of the side streets.  She's only open by appointment only, so we didn't get to try anything, but it's a neat looking shop!

Well, off to catch up on phone calls, emails, bills, etc.  Tomorrow I'll post a few pictures from Florida and a few of the grandkids, of course!  :)

AVA Walk - Bucyrus, Ohio

Last year, my mom found the coolest organization. They're called the American Volkssport Association. It's essentially an independent walking club. The AVA members map out walking routes all over the country that are normally either 5K or 10K. You can pick up the directions at a designated location and enjoy a beautiful walk that will normally take you through some very interesting areas.

Yesterday, my hubby and I did our 18th AVA walk. Well, I guess it was MY 18th AVA walk. He goes on almost every walk with me, but I have done a few with my mom. We've done AVA walks here in Ohio, but also on vacation in Florida, Tennessee, Indiana, and Kentucky! After Christmas, we plan on doing one in Savannah, Georgia that should be gorgeous. We try to do about one a week, although that will be really hard with winter settling in! :(

So, yesterday we went on an AVA walk to Bucyrus, Ohio. My hubby stopped at a cupcake shop that he knew of on the way to pick us up a treat. The owners of the cupcake shop also build monuments (yes, like cemetary stones), and the businesses are housed in the same building. So the name of the cupcake shop is.....

Somebody definitely has a cool sense of humor!  We bought two cupcakes and they were pretty good too!

Bucyrus is a relatively small town, but the walk was really cool.  They have a couple beautiful murals that take up the entire side of two buildings.  The detail is absolutely AMAZING!  It was worth the hour and a half drive just to see them!

Yes, my hubby is trying to take the newspaper from that poor little boy!

And yes, my hubby forced me to pet that dog!  :)

And this is the most gorgeous mural I have ever seen.  Every single face of the soldiers are different and they're all in different war period attire. 

So anyways, that was our adventure yesterday!  We have done so many of these walks.  It just saddens me that I never thought to take any pics before.  We've seen some really interesting places this way.  And if anyone would like any information about AVA, I'd be happy to answer any questions you have.  Their website is http://www.ava.org/.  They do have a list of available walks on their site.  Currently there are over 1800 walks through the United States!