Mike Doel’s Weblog

Roasting marshmallows around the fire

This past weekend, our family joined two other families in a campout at Hocking Hills State Park.  Although the weather was hot through the day, we avoided the raindrops.  Highlights include:

1. Cooking in a borrowed cast iron dutch oven turned out great - we used it for four meals with the best being a pork tenderloin mixed with veggies. 
2. Hiking at 3 of the 6 areas in the park (Old Man’s Cave, Rock House, and Conkle’s Hollow)
3. Swimming in the campground pool

Our daughter has had a great time playing softball this year.  I’ve been taking pictures of the team through most of the year and here are a few of the better ones of Cassady.

Our family just back from a fun trip east for Spring Break.  We flew into and out of Portsmouth, NH on Skybus - our first trip on the discount airline (our tickets were $35 each way).  From there, we drove northwest around Lake Winnipesaukee (visiting Julie’s old camp in the process) and then onto Portland, Maine where we spent the night.  The next day, we headed to Boston and spent the next several days seeing the sights.   Of course, pictures tell a better story, so check out the photo gallery of the trip.

On March 7 and 8 of 2008, central Ohio was buried under the biggest snowfall on record for these parts.  The prior record of snow in one day in Columbus had been 12.2 inches with 15.3 inches the record snowfall for a single storm.  With this blizzard, the official snowfall on Saturday the 8th was 15.4 inches and the storm total over the two days was 20.4 inches at Port Columbus Airport.  In our backyard, we seemed to max out at about 16 or 17 inches total from the storm.  In between the shoveling and playing, we managed to snap a few pictures.

One of the family highlights of 2007 was a trip to Alaska.  Julie, Matthew, and Cassady traveled via RV with Jamie and Dave.  Mike flew up and met them for several days a few weeks later.  Some of the best pictures from the trip have been captured in this photo album.