sports

proud to call ohio home.

July 12, 2010 by Rachel 8 Comments

In the wake of all of the LeBron drama, I figured I’d let you all know about the awesome things that Northeast Ohio {Cleveland AND Akron} have going for them:

1. Cleveland Browns, Cavs, and the Indians. Yes, professional sports teams. They may not be winning sports teams, but they are professional sports teams. Some places {clears throat — Syracuse} aren’t lucky enough to have a single professional team.

2. The Flats. Lots of people keep themselves entertained day in and day out in the flats!

3. Museum of Contemporary Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Not to mention the Akron Art Museum, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. I’ve visited zoos in other cities, and I don’t think Cleveland realizes what an awesome zoo we have. It is huge!

4. Fantastic restaurants. Not only is it home to Michael Symon’s Lola, but also to Jonathan Sawyer’s The Greenhouse, Melt Bar and Grilled {which was recently featured on Man Vs. Food}, Chrissie Hynde’s Vegiterranian, and my personal Akron fave, Crave {which is where BF took me on our first date}.

5. We are within short driving distance to Cedar Point and Kalahari. I’ve not yet been to Kalahari but have been begging BF to take me. We are also a short car ride from Put-In-Bay, a great weekend destination.

6. In addition to fun attractions, we have an awesome hospital system right at our fingertips. The Cleveland Clinic is incredible.

7. Cleveland Yoga. By far the most amazing yoga studio I have been to. The community and the practice are so strong!

8. BF and I and {most of} our families and friends live here. What else could a girl ask for?

But really Northeast Ohio is just a great community with great people and plenty of things to do and see. I’ve been here and there and everywhere, but I’m still proud to say I’m from Northeast Ohio.

just trying to enjoy a baseball game.

June 13, 2010 by Rachel 11 Comments

Friday night we went to an Akron Aeros baseball game. We received free tickets from one of BFs friends, so we invited my sister and her friend, and one of my bestest friends, C, and her boyfriend, T.
We had pretty good seats {which pretty much just means I could actually see what was happening} in a pretty packed crowd. There was a family behind us with two small children. The whole bunch was there… grandma, grandpa, mom, dad, uncles, and a three year old and probably 5-ish year old.

At first I was all, “awe, they are taking the little ones to a game! How cute!” That was, until the peanut shell spitting started.

Let’s be clear. This is a minor league team. The rows of seats are very close together. But these children were chewing up peanuts, and spitting the shells in my hair/on my back and on C’s back. And the parents? They. Laughed.

Only after the laughing did the parents say “Don’t do that,” and then continued to laugh more. Way to reinforce not to do something when you think it’s FUNNY.C and I were visibly irritated. We were wiping the chewed peanut shells out of our hair and off of our backs. But I still let it go. Just kids, right?

That’s what I thought. Until the ~~devil children~~ children started to walk back and forth from Grandma {who just thinks EVERYTHING is “So cute!”} to mom and dad… using our hair/backs/clothes as ways to keep balance. Then the screaming began. Not your normal “I’m-at-a-baseball-game” screaming, but possessed-by-the-devil, screaming at the top of their lungs. In. Our. Ears.

BF could tell I was getting annoyed. And he didn’t try and calm me, as he usually does, because I think he realized I was within reason.

But then the one devil child, whom not surprisingly the mom let open the sippy cup, decided to dump the sippy cup contents onto my back/lap as well as BFs back/lap.
I can’t even say that this was the worst of it. Cause then the parents didn’t even apologize. They had the balls to say, “Don’t worry. It’s just water. Mostly. …and juice.” and continued to laugh at their devil-childrens antics.

BF, who always keeps his cool, was irritated. And then the dad said “If you want you can spank him,” to us.

I was furious. Furious! How could these people be so non-chalant about their children being downright awful in a place so public? Again, I understand that when in public settings, it’s impossible to have your children behave like little angels. I give the benefit-of-the-doubt to parents with children who just refuse to behave. But these parents didn’t even attempt to put their children in line. They thought it was funny. Cute, even. I was so disgusted. I did not go off on these people, but I felt that I had the right to say something. This morning I am frustrated that I let it go.

What do you think? Was I within my rights to say something to their horrible parents?

i miss this already.

October 12, 2009 by Rachel 21 Comments

What a weekend! Hope everyone had a lot of fun.

BF and I had a great weekend! We decided against the jellyfish on Friday. It didn’t help that I was feeling a little under the weather most of the weekend, so I didn’t want to push my luck!

Overall it was a pretty relaxing weekend. We went for some pumpkin pancakes Saturday morning followed by a hike at Beaver Lake Nature Center.

The weather was a little rainy at first, but it turned out to be a beautiful day.

Later we did a little grocery shopping, took a nap, took the dog for a walk at the park, and made turkey tacos for dinner! Perfect evening!

This morning we woke up and drove to Buffalo to see the Bills take on the Browns (since we are from Cleveland/Akron area, BF has grown up a Browns fan… I, however, have grown into being a Bills fan).

It was ~~freakin’ freezing~~ a little chilly out.

And today was not a good day to be a Bills fan (when is a good time? never really). But it wasn’t much better to be a Browns fan today.

But afterwards we celebrated a crappy game with a trip to the Anchor Bar.

Those who have never heard of the Anchor Bar, it’s the home of the original chicken wing.

They have incredible pizza and chicken wings.

I had to take BF on his first Anchor Bar experience!

i learned a lot this weekend

September 20, 2009 by Rachel 29 Comments

Things that I learned this weekend:

-BF and I make some pretty fabulous homemade pizza.

{no sauce, just provolone, spicy sausage, spinach, and mushrooms!}

{again, I’m a little proud}

-wine tastings are fun, until you have to taste crappy wine.

-while I do not like apple cider, I love sparkling apple wine!

-three apple fritters split between two people is a perfect combination.

-HD TV in my bedroom = one more DVR in my house = extra space for me to record crappy shows and make BF watch them with me.

-I can be number one in the yahoo college pick em league with absolutely zero strategy… and beat BF.

-gelato is a lovely Sunday snack to share!

-the movie Nine was… interesting. But not as interesting as the mall after the movie 😉

-I have been missing out by never eating Honeycrisp Apples.

-the SIMS 3 could be my newest addiction, thanks to BF.

-snuggling is pretty much my favorite thing to do. Ever.

-the Buffalo Bills CAN win a football game!

-I am the luckiest girl in the world to have him in my life!

Baseball Games: The New Birth Control

June 14, 2009 by Rachel 4 Comments

Last night I went to an Akron Aeros (local team, obv.) baseball game and his (Big Brothers-Big Sisters) little bro. It was fun. I expected to have no common ground with this kid, but quickly realized that he is very similar to my 16 year old cousin. It was fun, minus the hundreds of screaming children surrounding us.

Looking on the brightside though, lately I’ve been warming up to the idea of (possibly way in the future) having a child (again, someday way in the future). But being around that many children was perfect birth control.

We went out to Luigi’s afterwards for some grub. I haven’t had Luigi’s pizza (or any pizza really) for about a year. It was delicious. But a belly ache quickly followed.

During the whole outting event I had palpitations about three or four times…. a couple were almost enough to make me pass out. I haven’t passed out from them yet, but it’s making me so dizzy and starving me from oxygen long enough that it’s making me have to cough for air. I’ll be following up with the doctor on Monday.

I attempted to call the doctor today while I was working at the yoga studio, but, of course, they were closed. I was worried that if I actually got ahold of the doctor she might send me to the ER. No thanks.

BF and I hit up a Mexican restaurant for dinner tonight and stopped by Dick’s Sporting Goods to look for some roller blade wheels and bearings, but they appearantly don’t carry them anymore. I told BF that a bike shop will probably have them (and there are about a million bike shops in this area, not sure why) and he’s pretty positive they won’t. We’ll see. I think I’ll win this challenge though.

The other plus of today is that I finally got an iPod Nano 4th Generation so I can start my Nike + workout tomorrow. I can’t decide whether I want to train for a 10k or a 1/2 Marathon. I’m pretty sure I could easily run a 10k now, so I may be bold and go for the 1/2 marathon training. Eek! That’s pressure though!

Ok, off to watch a scary movie (Quarantine). Have a great night everyone!