Cleveland Museum of Art

Last month Kenneth and I were able to check out an amazing exhibit featuring one of our favorite artists, Vincent Van Gogh at the Cleveland Museum of Art! Neither of us had ever been to the Cleveland Museum of Art before and we were excited to check it out. The drive from Columbus to Cleveland was a bit long (two hours and forty-five minutes) but it was definitely worth it!

The International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes at COSI

On our most recent visit to COSI, we went and saw The International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes for Kenneth's birthday. Kenneth is a big fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's writing. He recently finished reading all of Doyle's work featuring Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson and is now working on The Lost World. We both love the BBC's Sherlock. We were both excited to check this exhibition out! Watch a short preview of the exhibition below:

COSI - The Center of Science and Industry

COSI, the Center of Science and Industry is a #1 nationally ranked science museum, right here in Columbus (Parent Magazine gave COSI this #1 rating in 2008). I first visited COSI on a field trip with my 6th grade class. I don't remember everything about the trip, but I know we had a blast! We watched an IMAX film about the Blue Angels and checked out COSI's various exhibits. The one I remember the most was the exhibit, Progress, which is still at COSI today. When I was a 6th grader I thought the 1898 version of the town was really cool, even though my friends and I spent most of our time in the 1962 side, making our own news broadcast and getting our picture taken at the vintage gas station. It was an exciting trip to Columbus for a bunch of small town kids!

Scott Antique Market - Ohio Expo Center

Sunday afternoon last weekend we checked out the Scott Antique Market at the Ohio Expo Center. Kenneth and I were just at the Ohio Expo Center last month for the Home & Garden Show (read my review and check out some photos here).

The Bigelow Covered Bridge

Topiary Park

I love the combination of art and nature at Topiary Park! Kenneth and I visited this park in September after visiting the Columbus Museum of Art. The Topiary Park has a unique history and a really cool topiary display depicting Georges Seurat’s famous impressionist painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grand Jatte.

Columbus Museum of Art

The Columbus Museum of Art is the perfect destination for an artsy day trip to Columbus! Located in the Discovery District, the CMA is near the Columbus Metropolitan Library, Topiary Park, Thurber House, Kelton House, Franklin University, Columbus College of Art and Design, Capital University Law School and Columbus State Community College... hence the name the Discovery District!  

Capture Your Ohio History!

I'm so excited to be one of the photographers featured in the 2014 Ohio History Calendar! My photo (pictured above and below) was taken this summer at the Ohio Village. I love taking time to photograph small things when visiting a historical site or a park, like tiny flowers, or rain clinging to the flowers on garden plants.

Historic Palm House - Franklin Park

This awesome photo is on display in the Palm House Gallery at Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens.  It's cool to see how the Palm House looked many years ago!  It was built in 1895 and now is home to over forty different species of palm trees from all around the world.

A Very 1950s Holiday with the Ohio Historical Society at Whole Foods - Upper Arlington

On Saturday this weekend, Kenneth and I went back in time at our local Whole Foods!  The Ohio Historical Society was celebrating a 1950s Thanksgiving at Whole Foods, complete with costumed characters, 1950s recipes and crafts for kids. After Halloween, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  I love visiting with my family (without the chaos of Christmas shopping) and Thanksgiving food is the best!  I also really enjoy learning about the past, local history and my own genealogy are my favorite historical subjects.  When I read about this event I was pretty excited to attend! 

Halloween Lantern Walking Tour - Columbus Landmarks Foundation

I love Halloween – it’s my favorite holiday!  It’s in the middle of my favorite season and I love everything about it: picking out and making a costume, making and putting up fun decorations, hearing spooky stories or watching scary movies and enjoying Halloween candy and pumpkin flavored foods.  My husband, Kenneth, on the other hand, is at best ambivalent about this Fall holiday (though he does love the Fall season and pumpkin flavored foods!).  He hates dressing up (he’s essentially Jim Halpert from The Office when it comes to Halloween costumes) and he doesn’t like scary movies or stories.  He also firmly doesn’t believe in ghosts and is a little embarrassed that I do (again, very much like Jim). 

All of these reasons make it very unlikely that my husband would join me on a haunted ghost tour in downtown Columbus… but he did!  This past Sunday, Kenneth and I went on a Columbus Landmarks Foundation ghost tour, specifically the Haunted Lantern Walking Tour.  In June this summer, we attended an event co-hosted by Greenlawn Cemetery and the Columbus Landmarks Foundation called 201 Years of Stories & Stones, which was awesome!     

Piqua Heritage Festival - Johnston Farm & Indian Agency

Food Booths, Antique Tractors and some of the Demonstration Booths.

 
The Piqua Heritage Festival is my favorite event held in my hometown of Piqua, Ohio.  The festival began in 1981 and is a family friendly celebration of Piqua history, local food and crafts.  The festival includes a variety of entertainment, music, children's crafts and games and a pre-1870s encampment.  While attending the festival, you can also visit the Johnston Farm & Indian Agency, located just off of the festival grounds.   If you watch Parks and Recreation on NBC, the Heritage Festival is a lot like the Pawnee Harvest Festival, minus Li'l Sebastian and Leslie Knope!

I'm including a review of the festival on my blog because while Piqua is not in Central Ohio, it's an easy hour and a half drive from the Capital City and is definitely worth the trip!

Ohio History Center

Last month I visited the Ohio History Center.  It was a short visit and I intend to go back soon, but I was able to check out a few of their exhibits including The Nature of Ohio, Ohio: Centuries of Change, Follow the Flag and Connecting to Your History.  I also visited the Ohio Village to see friends who are costumed interpreters this summer.

I spent most of my time in The Nature of Ohio and Connecting to your History exhibits.  The Nature of Ohio exhibit is fairly large and focuses on the plants, animals, geology, geography and climate of Ohio.  It features extinct animals that used to live in the area - including a huge mastodon skeleton!  

I was most interested in the plants section of the exhibit and I loved how some of the plants are displayed - especially the framed herbarium specimens.  I worked in the Floyd Bartley Herbarium at Ohio University when I was a student and spent a lot of time preparing plant specimens like the ones on display.

My favorite exhibit I visited was the Connecting to Your History exhibit, which is all about family history and genealogy.  I'm very interested in my own family history and use Ancestry.com to do research.  This exhibit allows visitors to do the same - there is a computer in the back corner of the room with Ancestry.com set-up and pencils and paper to make notes of what you discover.  There's also a display that includes tips on how to preserve family heirlooms and a map where you can place a sticker for where you were born, where your parents were born and where their parents were born (there were a TON of stickers on Ohio!).  The state of Ohio is featured by itself on the map so local visitors can be more exact in their placement of stickers.  

I loved the tree in the room - its leaves have old family photos on them, making it a real 'family tree!'  

There are certain spots throughout the museum that encourage visitors to snap a photo of themselves and share it with the Ohio Historical Society Group on Flickr.  I don't have a Flickr account, but I snapped a few shots of myself in the Ohio: Centuries of Change exhibit.  Check out the photos in the Flickr group - there are some very talented photographers contributing their work!

I visited about a week before the newest exhibit, 1950s: Building the American Dream, opened (unfortunately I'm posting this review pretty late, the exhibit opened on July 13th!). I will definitely be back to check this exhibit out! Here's a video about the exhibit: Exhibition takes immersive look at 1950s.

Ohio Village

Two weeks ago I visited the Ohio Village to see some friends, Brooke and Ely, who are volunteering as costumed interpreters, Kitty and Jasper, this summer.  The Ohio Village is a Civil War era town, located next to the Ohio History Center.  

I love historical towns and villages like this - I remember visiting one in Indiana with my family when I was a kid and thinking it was the coolest thing!  It's like stepping back in time, without having to find a TARDIS, DeLorean, or other time machine!  I didn't have a lot of time to explore, as I was meeting family on the OSU campus for lunch, but I did have time to wander through the town for a short while, despite the light summer drizzle.

201 Years of Stories & Stones - Greenlawn Cemetery

Last month, Kenneth and I visited the Greenlawn Cemetery for a historical program called 201 Years of Stories & Stones.  The program was hosted by Greenlawn Cemetery and the Columbus Landmarks Foundation.  I've always been interested in history and thought it would be fun to find out more about Columbus' past.  I've also heard that Greenlawn Cemetery is a good birding area, but before this event, I had yet to visit.

The program description from the Columbus Landmarks Foundation read:

Stories & Stones highlights Columbus history and architecture through the lives of some of its most famous (and a few not so well-known!) residents who reside in perpetuity...