Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Memorial Day Runaway, Cincy Day 3


Joe snuck off first thing in the morning for donuts. 
Apparently, they are the Best In Town. 
They have two stores, one downtown, and one close by. I think it was Holtman's.
They were really good! 
Sam and I split a chocolate bacon, and Eric and I split a blueberry cream cheese. 
So Good! 


Jacob has a new friend, who will make sure that he doesn't drop anything while he's having his super chocolate breakfast donut.  


The other critters come out to observe breakfast. 
Apparently, it took Gandalf the cat 3 days to warm up to us. 

We opted for a Morning Swim before hitting the road!


All the kids had a great time playing in the pool together. 



Jacob is a goofball, in case you didn't notice.


Daddy is being attacked by Sweetboys! 


Please note all 6 kids are playing together happily in the pool. 
All 6!  
And I'm not in there.



See this?  
This is what happens when kids can swim. 
I can sit in a chair in the shade, and watch them swim. 
All 6 kids are not drowning in the pool. 
This was the furthest I've been away from them in a pool. Ever. 

Big Step for Mommy!

One last photo for the road.  
All 6 kids in the music room. 


See, miracles happen when all 6 kids can be sweet for a photo. 
Well, jury is out on Jacob. ;) 


After packing up, we decided to go to Jungle Jim's.  
Chris desperately wanted a cheeseburger for lunch.  And we found them at the Big Boy right by the Jungle Jim's. This made everyone happy. 


Time to go shopping at Jungle Jim's. 
I told the boys they could each pick one thing. I figured they'd find one unusual food. 
They each picked a Lego kit. Duh Mommy. 


The alligator tells me how tall Jacob is. 
37 inches, or 3'1".


Sam is 4 foot, almost 4'1".


Chris is the tallest, 4 foot 5.  Almost 4 1/2 feet. 
I can't take it. 

The last time we went to Jungle Jim's we spent <40$.  That did not happen this time. :O
But we've found some new favorite things from there like Grippo's and Ski, and some amazing new beers.  I could totally go right back! 


Yeah, toast. 
This is how Jacob is happiest while we travel, let him have the Greatest Showman lyrics. 
After Jungle Jim's, we headed home, ending a Wonderful weekend. 
I can't wait to get together with them again!




Memorial Day Runaway, Cincy Day 2

Saturday morning was rough, since Jake and I had been hot and awake for half the night.  I woke to Jacob stating, Mommy it's light outside.  Light is for waking up.  Apparently, all wishes for sleeping in, are lost on Jacob.  But luckily, we weren't the only ones having a slow go on Saturday morning.


This is Padme Amidogma.  She's Joe and Kate's mix of Great Pyrenees, Husky, and possibly Golden Retreiver.  Her humans do a great low voiced impression.  I imagine she says Yup and I Love You a lot.  She has her own couch, and whenever someone moves off it, she hops up... sometimes while people are still there.  And she's got the most gorgeous yellow eyes.   

She makes me sleepy, and hot.  She's the sweetest hotbox ever!
We snuggled during breakfast.  
As we discussed the plan of the day, it was decided to hit the Cincinnati Nature Center before lunch and a trip to the pool.  The Nature Center was where Lucie and Amelie went to Preschool.  It's pretty Awesome.  And we avoided the crowds! 


6 children be sweet. <3


6 children be crazy. <3 


My sweetboys model and pretend to be butterflies. 


They have this pond. 
Preschool rules are that you have to sit down if you want to be near the edge.  
Brilliant.  


Mr. Turtle on a log. 


We found another turtle hidden among the grasses.  


Purple chinese irises in bloom near the pond were a gorgous pop of color!


We found a second pond, and heard some bullfrogs chatting.   There were turtles out there too.


Stop, we have the opportunity to learn something. 
And see another pair of turtles on a log. 


We have a froglet.  
See that tail still on the frog? It's not quite fully grown yet, and not quite a tadpole. 


Turtles on the log. 
Amelie named them, but I forget what.  
They have a few turtles they know.  
It's handy to go to preschool at the park!


The road less traveled.  
This isn't the path we took, a tree came down. 
The kids could limbo there, but not us. 


All 6 kids stop in one place. 
Just for a moment. 


There's just something therapeutic about being in the shade of tall trees. 
Even if some of us were hurting, it was All Good. 


Mommy always brings up the rear, and watches. 


The mud pile. 
This place legitimately had a mud hole, for the kids to play in. 

Seriously. 

You know they're never playing in a mud hole at home. 
but there was a foot/hand shower right around the corner. So we figured what the heck. 
Plus I had emergency outfits in the car. This time of year, I always carry a backup. 


Sam and Jake's pants crack me up. 


After mud hole time, we hike a bit to the nature house where the Daddy's visited to do some shopping.  They were having a plant sale. 


They had this neat bird feeder set up where all kinds of native birds would come and we could watch. I could've stayed there for a long time.  
We get a few of the same in our backyard too.  Still, I would've loved to stay longer. 
But the kids were Toast. 


Sam studies... SCIENCE! 


For lunch, we tried something new.  Grippos' chips.  Um my new favorite!  And Joe picked up some curried chicken lunchmeat to try among the basics that the kids liked. 
Plus beer.  Eating at their place was AWESOME! 


Remember that other time that 6 kids all ate at the same time. 


After lunch, our crew hit the pool. 
The pool was 2 doors down from their house.  Nice! 


Our whole crew attacks the pool! 


After our swims, some folks needed naps (Um, Jake and Mommy, and Joe.) so the big kids had some quiet screen time.  They all were inventing minecraft worlds together when I woke up. 


This was all of them playing joint screens.  My heart overflows. 


We found Amelie's favorite pizza place in downtown Milford, Paradrino's.  
I tried this blueberry beer, that was scrumptious and a fancy pizza.  
They couldn't handle a party of 10.  They didn't know what to do with us.  
I could've put tables together faster, but the food was good. 


This is slumber party time.  
It took no time for them to go to sleep.  



This one was initially disinclined to go to sleep Sunday night, but he eventually got there. 
We kept the window cracked all night, got some good breeze going, and slept well.  
It had been a busy day, but with breaks built in, we did great.  
It turns out our families have a lot more in common than I thought.  
I'm so glad we came.  

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Memorial Day Runaway Cincy, Day 1

On Saturday, after Gymnastics and lunch, and a bit of a poopalooza, we hit the road to visit our college friends who live in Cincinnati for the weekend! 

Here's my Top 10 pics from Saturday. 

10.  Jacob was out cold 20 minutes into our journey. 
I love how Gymnastics wears him out.  He thinks he doesn't always need naps, but he does. 

9.  We found a thunderstorm.  We chased it for a while, right behind, as evident by the smoldering street, but then we caught up with it in Cincy, and passed it.  Then it hit us again when we got to our friends Joe and Kate's house. 

8.  They know what's up.   Joe had found this beer, well, tea beer at Jungle Jim's and stocked up because I said I like sweet things.  This was Refreshing after driving on a hot summer day.  Perfect!
And I love sampling Local Fare! 

7.  Lucie's big brother and sister are both on Dance Teams.  She is joining up this fall.  But while the Daddies were out picking up dinner, she gave Kate and I our very own dance recital performance.  


Here's a sample.  
This is the stuff I miss having boys.  My sister and I did performances All The Time. 
Lu slayed me with her mad skills, and she was enchanting.  I loved it.  Amelie tapped barefoot for us too, but I didn't tape any of that.  I think God knows that if I had daughters, they'd be dancing and having tutu drawers, because I just love it all so.  So he sends me boys. 
The closest I get to a Performance is Star Wars: Crazy Wars, episodes created every summer.


6.  Remember that one time, all 6 children sat in one place and ate their dinner so sweetly? 
They ate so sweetly, that we grownups got to actually sit down and talk!
We ordered from a chipotle style mom and pop mexican place called FUEGO!  Eric got the hottest sauce they had, it made him cry, he loved it.  The little hispanic gal behind the counter had been genuinely worried about his health.  Everyone ate.  And Eric was just fine! 


5.  The girls generously offered the bunkbed in their room to the boys.  But the boys wanted to camp out with Jack in his room.  So it ended up being just Jacob on the top bunk.  To keep him company, I took the bottom bunk. He loved the princess canopy, and the kitty and dance art work on the walls.  


4. Flower power nightlights!  We are not used to flower decor like in little girl rooms.  We loved it! 
This green flower made Jacob very happy.  He wanted to leave it on all night long! 

3.  We were being watched.  
Something new for Jacob.  Their cat Gandalf, who was super shy around us, kept sneaking in to check us out while we tried to go to sleep.  
I've forgotten what it's like to live with cats.  I didn't realize how much I missed them. 

2.  Somebody's watching me. 


1.  This child was disinclined to sleep in the new room.  Mr. Peek-a-pook-aHe loved being on the top bunk, and all the decorations that are totally different from things we have.  This first night, he didn't settle down until almost midnight.  If I hadn't been so tired, it would've been really fun and funny.  
As it is, 3 days later, now it's funny.