Let's Play a Game...

It's called:

Where's Ashley going this weekend?!

If you've been following my tweets, (and if you aren't, why not?!) you know I've been struggling to figure out what to do for my husband's birthday/Labor Day weekend/last weekend before he starts classes and we never see each other during the week.

Last year, he took me camping, to a play, to an apple orchard/pumpkin patch and to an adorable little hippie-ish college town replete with tons of cute little coffee shops.

I? bought him killer brownies, Ben & Jerry's, and some Magic Hat beer and called it a [birth]day.

I was definitely feeling the pressure this year: Camping? Zip line-ing? Going back to Ann Arbor? Chicago?

Everywhere I looked, hotels, bed & breakfasts, and campsites were booked.

Then, it dawned on me, the answer was right under my nose:

Does that help?

How about this:

Not so much?

Okay, I'll give you a hint: it's six miles away.

Yep! I decided we're going to make the most of the bittersweet, last official weekend of summer and explore this city of ours a little more: It's Cleveland, baby!

I reserved a suite at the only place with available rooms:

We'll spend the weekend hanging out in University Circle -Home of the Cleveland Botanical Gardens. (They have a special Tropical Garden right now. Fresh banana smoothies, anyone?)

We'll also hang out in this park:

Visit the Cleveland Museum of Art:

Eat at the delicious trattorias and bakeries in Little Italy:

And check out the Museum of Natural History:

We might even venture a few miles downtown for the Taste of Cleveland and the Air Show! When there's so much explore here, why leave?

We'll save gas, explore our own (new) city, and get to stay in a hotel! (You have no idea how ridiculously excited I get about staying in hotels. The beds! The fresh, clean sheets! Cute little shampoo bottles! Every thing's SO CLEAN! And a cable TV! A telephone in the bathroom. I might not actually need to leave the hotel...)

Have a wonderful holiday weekend and make sure to spend lots of time r e l a x i n g . . .

______________

Dana asked where I've been lately. Guess I should explain: Our Mac Powerbook's hard drive crashed. We lost all of our music, pictures, and documents. Worst of all, I lost the Adobe CreativeSuite that I'd gotten for free.

Actually, worst of all is our loss of ability to get on the Internet at home. That means my blog time has been restricted to work hours. And I don't like to spend too much time doing personal stuff online at work (plus, they keep me pretty darn busy here!). Oddly, I haven't missed the distraction of the laptop while I'm relaxing at home.

But I have missed the blogging world.

Mike got a new hard drive and is hoping to perform a transplant in the near future. Just so ya know. :)

(And? As if all of this wasn't awful enough - I've gone and lost my camera. Boo.)