Ohio recap, 2011: The west side

(Yes, I realize at this point we're several months out and an entire trip to Ohio removed from this second installment, but for scrapbooking/memory keeping purposes, I'm publishing this anyway!)

So. Over. This. Car.

On Tuesday, we packed up the car and drove four hours west to Tim's parents' house. Elle did great but was more than ready to be out of her car seat. We enjoyed a nice, quiet night catching up with Tim's parents. Tim discovered that he couldn't use his work laptop at his parents' house because of a firewall issue, so we made a late-night run to a local McDonald's to use their free Wi-Fi. We live on the edge, I tell ya.

On Wednesday, Tim's mom had arranged for the extended family to come over for dinner. Many of Tim's aunts hadn't met Elle yet, and all of the family wanted to come celebrate her first birthday. Tim's brother owns a pizza place (in addition to practicing law, among other things - he's a busy dude), so he supplied the yummy food, and Elle enjoyed a piece of ice cream cake after everyone sang to her.

Happy birthday to YOU!

"You didn't tell me there would be ice cream cake."

She was a bit overwhelmed by everything at first but loved playing with her presents, exploring everyone's cell phones and hanging out with her cousins, Cal and Sam.   

Playing with Daddy, Cal, Sam and Aunt Angie.

On Thursday, Tim and I took advantage of Grandma's offer to babysit Elle, and we headed to Lima, the "big city" in the area. (Tim and I met there, and I love it dearly and will treasure fond memories of it forever, but it's not exactly a bustling metropolis.) We did some shopping at the mall, ate lunch at Tim's favorite Mexican restaurant and then hung out at Panera (which was not there when either of us lived in Lima) to ... use the Wi-Fi! I spent the time reading, Tim spent the time working, and Elle spent the time crafting an epic diaper for Grandma. Oops!

Lunch at Bandido's:)

That evening, we had dinner with a friend of Tim's and his family. They have three little girls (approximate ages 2, 4 and 6), so there were plenty of toys for Elle to play with, and she laughed so much with the girls. It was hilarious, and it was nice for Tim and I to hang out with the adults :)

On Friday, we packed up and hung out until Elle woke up from her morning nap.

Photo ops with Grandpa's dog, Lucy, before we headed out.

We made a quick stop in town to visit another friend of Tim's, and then we hit McDonald's (Wi-Fi, again). We hit the road and Elle promptly fell asleep, and less than two hours later we were at Tim's cousin's house in Cincinnati. Tim and cousins Jeff and Ryan headed out to the Reds game, and Jeff's wife, Allison, and 18-month-old daughter, Syd, settled in with Elle and I for dinner and a quiet, relaxing night ... until it wasn't :)

Future engineers Elle and Syd.

We had finished dinner and were slowly getting the girls ready for bed when Allison walked out of the living room to throw away a poopy diaper. Allison tripped on the baby gate (further proof that child proofing is the devil), though, and fell, hard. At first, she was shocked and sore, but soon, she realized something was seriously wrong with her arm. We tried to reach the boys and figure out what to do, and in the end it was decided that I would stay home and put the girls to bed, a friend of Allison's would drive her to the ER, and Jeff would leave the game and meet her there.

Hours later, Allison came home ... with a broken elbow. She has since had surgery and is healing well, but I can't even begin to tell you how much baby gates freak me out right now! Jeff went back to the stadium to pick up Ryan and Tim, and we all pretty much crashed that night.

On Saturday, we met up with Ryan's wife and another cousin, Travis, for breakfast. Allison had to explain why her arm was in a sling, everyone ate way too many pancakes, and a good time was had by all.

No bones were broken in the making of this breakfast.

After breakfast, we headed for our final Ohio destination: the Columbus airport. We had a bit of time to kill, but Elle enjoyed crawling up and down deserted areas of the airport. The flight back was nice because it wasn't full, so we had a full row to ourselves. Unfortunately, Elle didn't feel like taking a long nap, and then there were storms in Tampa that kept us circling Orlando for half an hour before we could land.

By the time we got our luggage, Tim got our car and we loaded everything up, it was about an hour later than previously planned, which meant we were screwed on any chance of getting home before Elle's normal bed time. Luckily, Elle fell asleep in the car and went back down easily when we got home - I guess vacation will do that to you :)

It was a great, exhausting trip - we're fortunate that we can make one (plane) trip and see both sides of our families. We had a blast seeing everyone and were blessed with an excellent traveler :)

Ohio recap, 2011: The east side

Oh yes, just weeks before our next trip north, I finally have completed (and added photos, which for some reason always seems to take me forever to get around to doing) our recaps from the BIG trip of the year.  

Elle and I arrived at my parents on Wednesday evening. We had dinner, played around outside and basically tried to keep things calm since we'd had a long day of traveling.

On Thursday, our plans to meet up with a friend of mine for lunch were canceled because of a transportation issue, so we embraced the chance to hang out with my family.

Helping Uncle Doug.

On Friday, we met up with two of my good friends for lunch, and then we met up with Christy and Blaine for ice cream :)

At lunch with Lins and Sara!
(I was trying to keep napkins or the check or something away from Elle.)

We got home and waited for Daddy to arrive! He had flown in to Columbus, met up with my sister for lunch and got the car from her that we were going to borrow for the week (my sister and brother-in-law were going on vacation to the beach the next day and wouldn't need both of their cars, so we got to borrow one :)). That night, we let Tim recover from his long day of travel.

"Yay! Daddy's here!"

On Saturday, we went to my good friend Megan's wedding. Elle stayed with Grams, Gramps and Uncle Doug, and Tim and I had a blast. It was awesome to have an extended date night, watching Megan and Fred commit to each other, eat and drink delicious stuff and celebrate the nuptials with some of my closest, dearest friends.

Gorgeous bride Megan.

With good friends Jen (who just gave birth last week)
and Sara (who got engaged shortly after we returned to FL!).

At the reception :)

On Sunday, my uncle drove over from Pittsburgh and joined us for lunch to celebrate Elle's upcoming birthday. Elle LOVED the cake. She scarfed it down like she was afraid I would take it away if she didn't eat it fast enough.

With Great Uncle Dave.

Pre-cake.

Cake-in-progress.

Then Doug and Tim went to the movies, and Elle and I went to a baby shower for one of my best friends from high school. It was awesome to see her - we don't get to see each other very often, and she looks so stinkin' cute pregnant :) We can't wait to meet Baby Kate!

Teren and Baby Kate :)

That night, Elle and I met up with my friend Jen for some Starbucks :) We had been at the wedding together, but it was nice to have a chance to catch up more - and it was the last time I'd see her before her son arrived (which was JUST THREE DAYS AGO, YIPPEEEEE!).

Jen captivates Elle.

On Monday, Doug, Tim, Elle and I headed up to my alma mater, Kent State. We met one of my former professors for lunch and a tour of the new journalism building, which is ah-maz-ing, by the way. I was jealous. We took a brief walk around campus so I could show Tim some stuff (he'd been on campus with me in the past, but I think it was winter and not exactly favorable walking weather). We checked out the old journalism building, the May 4th memorial sites and the student center, which has undergone some major changes.

I spent a lot of time in this student center.

Elle was tired.

We headed home and basically just hung out for the rest of the night, because we were set to head out for the west side of the state after breakfast the next morning!

Wordless Wednesday: Winter X-Games

For my birthday, my family gathered in the mountains
of Colorado - where it snowed, snowed, snowed.
Here, my sister caught the perfect photo of Tim's
favorite game with Elle - Baby Tossing!
More on our trip to come - I'm still
catching up on life and photo editing!

Ohio recap: The west side

(At least I got this recap in *this* year, right?!)

Elle and I spent the first four days of our trip on the east side of Ohio, visiting my family and friends. After a night in Columbus, we continued our tour of the state.

Day 5:

Daddy joins us! Tim arrived in Columbus that morning and drove to Aunt Marti's in a rental car. Then we set out to travel west. We got lost stopped for lunch at a Panera on the way, and since we were making good time, we decided to make a stop in Lima.

We drove by some familiar places and then arrived at The Lima News.

It was great to see so many people we had worked with - this was the place where we met, and now we came back with our baby! Very cool.

We spent the evening with Grandpa Bob, Uncle Todd, Aunt Angie and Elle's cousins Nick, Cal and Sam (shown below). *Someone* had to watch the Reds playoff game, so we gathered there to see the Redlegs lose.

Day 6:

Grandma Barb arrived home early in the morning after a few days in Washington, D.C. She got some cuddles in with Elle before we headed out to Bluffton. First, we hung out with Daddy's friend Doug and his three daughters.

Then we headed over to campus to have lunch with Daddy's friend Tim. We went back to Tim's house so we could see his wife and three children (Mia, Kate and Seth).

Then we all went to the Homecoming game, which was more than half over by the time we got there, and met up with Doug, his dad and one of his daughters. (Elle's first college football game!) Bluffton ended up winning. (Go Beavers!)

We went back to Grandma and Grandpa's house and then drove back to Lima for a big family dinner to celebrate Grandpa Bob's 80th birthday, which was the next day.

The actual dinner happened on Grandma Barb's birthday.  Here, Cal shows her photos that he took during dinner.

Since Tim can't check weather.com and pack appropriately it was unseasonably warm while we were in Ohio, we headed to Kohl's after dinner to get Tim some Bengals gear he could wear to the next day's game without sweating to death. While we were shopping, I realized we were in Elle's version of heaven - she has been drawn to the color red for months, and everywhere we turned was Reds gear and Buckeyes gear.

Day 7:

We got up early again - this time, we had to say goodbye to Grandma Barb and Grandpa Bob, and we set out for Cincinnati.

We got to cousin Jeff's house, and Daddy soon left to attend the Bengals game with Jeff and Jeff's dad, Toby. Elle and I hung out with Jeff's wife Allison, Jeff's mom Linda and Jeff's daughter Sydney.

Syd wasn't sure what to make of this other little creature, but we had a good afternoon, and it was great to hang out with the ladies.

Daddy came back a bit sad, as the Bengals had lost. But he remained hopeful that the Reds might pull out a playoff victory. We hopped back in the car and headed to Columbus to catch the game on TV.

We met up with Aunt Marti and Uncle Jeff again ... and watched the Reds lose, ending their playoff bid.

Day 8:

We headed to the airport and returned our rental car. The return trip to Florida was made a little more complicated because Tim insisted on bringing his computer for the trip, and the Columbus airport employees were not nearly as helpful as the Tampa employees in terms of folding up our gear, letting us go through the scanners, etc. But we made it with plenty of time and got lunch while Elle pooped her pants. After I cleaned her up, we hung out in Starbucks for a while before heading to our gate, and Elle slept the entire flight.

Looking back on how much she slept and how easy it was for her to go to sleep (as opposed to her now-five-months-and-very-distractable-personality), I am so, so glad we traveled with her when she was that young. There was no fighting her to go to sleep, she didn't really have much of a schedule to disrupt, and as long as we made sure she was as well-rested and well-fed as possible, she was golden. There was a 21-month-old behind us on our flight to Tampa, and he was less than angelic and easy to handle. I said a silent prayer that Elle would never behave like that, but I also was grateful she was so easy going on her first big trip.

Ohio recap: The east side

I've decided to make these recaps photo-heavy in the interest of time (you know, since we went to Ohio more than a month ago). We'll start with the first four days of our trip, in which Elle and I spent time on the eastern side of the state, visiting my family and friends.

Day 1:

Elle and I arrive at the Tampa airport. Elle sleeps in front of our gate.

Elle eats on takeoff, fusses a little during the flight and then falls fast asleep. (Side note: Seriously, traveling with her was a breeze, especially at the Tampa airport. They helped me fold up the stroller and flip the car seat to go through the security scanners, and that was pretty much the biggest hurdle we faced. We had a flight that fit in well with Elle's schedule, and I wore flip flops and no belt to make it as easy as possible for me to get through security, and I just had her diaper bag as a carry on. SIMPLE.)

We arrive at my parents' house. Elle and Doug play.

I meet up with some of the coolest high school friends ever for coffee. Elle was super excited to meet these ladies.

Day 2:

My sister-in-law Ashlee and niece Abby arrive! Ashlee and Abby were in state from Colorado, so Ashlee drove down from Toledo to spend some time with us.

Abby is a month older than Elle, so it was fun to see them "meet" for the first time. They seemed to be in competition - Abby would eat, then Elle would eat. Elle would poop, then Abby would poop. Abby would cry, then Elle would cry. Elle would sleep, then Abby would sleep. It took a good 10 hours for them to finally be happy, awake, clean and fed at the same time.

During my pregnancy, my grandma insisted that if Elle and I were to visit during my maternity leave, she would
come visit us rather than having us add a Pittsburgh stop to our itinerary. I love my grandma dearly, and I would have gone to Pittsburgh so that she could meet Elle, but having her come to us allowed for much more quality time, AND we gave her the surprise of a lifetime when she arrived and found not one but two great-granddaughters eager to meet her. 

Grandma decided that "Great-Grandma" was a bit of a mouthful, so she'll now be known as Grandma Rene, which is especially appropriate since Elle and I share the middle name of Irene.

Elle initially was all up in Abby's business:



Grandma Rene spent a lot of time imparting wisdom on the two little ones:



More video here and here.

Day 3:

More family time with Ashlee, Abby, Grandma Rene, Grams, Gramps and Uncle Doug. Elle spent some time with Gramps watching music videos. Here, Elle is educated about Fleetwood Mac.

Ashlee and Abby had to leave that afternoon, and Elle and I met up with some of my closest college friends for dinner.

Elle was thankful that Aimee gave her a bottle and Claudia helped burp her.

Day 4:

Grams and Grandma Rene ran some errands while Elle and I met up with a high school friend for lunch. Lisa and I were in band and German Club together - her daughter, Elizabeth Anne, or Ella, was due about three weeks after Elle. We got the girls together to "meet," although Elle slept through the whole thing :)

That afternoon, we headed south to rendezvous with Aunt Marti. Grams and Uncle Doug dropped Elle and I off. Grams bid Elle a temporary farewell.

Then Aunt Marti shuttled us to Columbus, where we met up with my good friend Teren for dinner.

Uncle Jeff also joined us. It was a par-tay! Then we headed back to Marti and Jeff's so that Mommy could have a glass of wine or three and Elle could take a break from the car.

All sorts of nostalgic

I was talking with some women who work in our condo office the other day about "how fast time flies." The one woman said she was watching video of her going on walks and having one-on-one time with her two sons, and she said she just keeps watching the videos over and over thinking about how fast they've grown and how much they've changed.

I had to admit that in my six weeks of motherhood, I've looked through the photos from Elle's delivery, hospital stay and our first days at home AT LEAST once a week. I re-read the birth story blog posts every few days. I've even been back to L&D triage to see Suellen, one of the nurses.

And I've found myself looking at the blog posts from throughout our pregnancy a lot lately - even toward the end of the pregnancy, I was glancing back at my first trimester posts and thinking that it seemed SO LONG ago that I wrote them, especially those from early on, like when I thought my baby bump was HUGE at 14 weeks.

Now I'm making the final entries in my pregnancy journal, and I'm filling in pages of Elle's baby book, including the standard background info of when we found out we were expecting, who we told first, etc. And it is making me quite emotional.

But for a funnier side of nostalgia, I thought I should blog about baby's first trip to Ohio. (The baby will be making a return trip toward the end of my maternity leave.) The first trip is something I wanted to blog about long ago and never got around to it ... Tim some might say it is over-sharing, but I've never been one to hold back!

We went to Ohio last November for Tim's cousin Ryan's wedding. We were heading in to our second month or so of trying to conceive, and in casual conversation over the weekend, Tim told EVERYONE (seriously, everyone) that I was pregnant. We met an old friend for lunch - we hadn't seen him in almost four years, and Tim threw it out over pasta. Announced it to his cousins and their wives at the rehearsal dinner. Told his brother at the wedding. Blurted it out less than an hour after meeting my sister and brother-in-law for dinner.

I wasn't really super comfortable with the world knowing that we were trying to conceive. And I really didn't want to put the cart before the horse. But seriously, Tim could not be stopped. I spent a large part of the trip clarifying that we didn't know if I was pregnant, but we were trying and would keep everyone posted.

When we found out we were pregnant, I actually thought we had conceived in mid-October. Since my cycles were irregular, though, I didn't really know for sure. We had our first appointment and an ultrasound to date the pregnancy and were given the Aug. 3 due date. The nurse threw out an estimated conception date, too: November 10.

Uhhhh ...

Without going in to too much detail, we know without a doubt that we conceived on Nov. 6. When the nurse gave us those dates, we looked at each other and said "It's an Ohio baby!"

When we told our families that we were expecting, most of them didn't focus on the timing - in time, we brought it up, saying something along the lines of "And this is an Ohio baby!" But when we told Tim's cousin Jeff and his wife, Allison was quick to do the math.

"Wait a minute. You're how far along? ... That means ... you guys were here then. (pause) Did you conceive your baby in our house?!"

At the wedding, unaware that we were kinda/sorta expecting.

We stayed with Jeff and Allison the weekend of the wedding. When Tim told them we were pregnant (in his blanket announcement to his cousins that we were pregnant when we in fact did not know that we were pregnant), Jeff and Allison had joked that maybe our baby would be conceived in their home, saying they had proof that it was a fertile place (Allison was seven months pregnant at the time). Tim had BEGGED me not to tell Jeff and Allison that their house was, in fact, where we conceived, but Allison guessed it, so I admitted she was right. (My sister later did the math, too - we stayed with her for a night after our weekend at Jeff and Allison's - and she was relieved to find out that she was not the manager of the Hotel de Fertility.)

Since then, though, Tim and I have referenced that weekend as "baby's first trip to Ohio." In that regard, Elle has already been to a Bengals game (even though she was still two separate entities at that point, waiting for fertilization to occur). Baby took her first plane ride during that trip, even though we didn't find out we were pregnant until almost a month later. Baby has experienced her first fall, although it was unseasonably warm.

So now, as our big fall trip to Ohio is on the horizon, I'm nostalgic for the big trip we took last fall. Tim wants to go to another Bengals game on this trip. We're splitting our time between both sides of the state, with an overnight stay at my sister's. We'll see many of the same family members and friends. I'm not taking clothes for a wedding, and my biggest packing challenge is figuring out what we'll need for the baby. This time, we're neither trying to conceive nor pregnant - we're parents.

Sorrrrryyyyy.

So I know I promised updates from our California trip months ago. And those never happened.

But then November happened and was full of some fun stuff. So I'll try to recap some of that now!

In early November, Tim and I traveled to Ohio for his cousin Ryan's wedding. We were greeted by some rare, warm weather. We flew in to Columbus because it was cheaper, and we picked up our rental car and headed to Gahanna, where we were married almost a year before. We met up with our friend Aaron (aka "Cookie") at Mezzo, the restaurant where we'd had our rehearsal dinner. We were able to walk around for a bit before lunch and saw the Sanctuary, where we had our ceremony and reception, and look around the park surrounding Mezzo, which we'd really only seen in the dark the year before. It was a great afternoon and we had a blast catching up with Cookie, whom we both knew from our days working at The Lima News.

(Us walking in the park near Mezzo)

After lunch, we drove to Cincinnati and arrived at Tim's cousin Jeff's house just in time to change for the rehearsal dinner. We stayed with Jeff and Allison all weekend and had a blast. The rehearsal dinner was a great chance to gather some of the cousins

(Jeff, Tim, Travis)

and their gorgeous and patient wives together.

(Travis' wife Jessica, me, Jeff's wife Allison)

We headed back to Jeff's and Allison's and the boys played some games before bed. The next morning, Allison had to join the female half of the bridal party early for hairstyles and photos, but the boys took some time to get ready before heading to the church. Tim was an usher, so we basically just went wherever and whenever the other cousins (Jeff and Travis) went, because they were best man and groomsman, respectively.

Before the wedding, Jeff and I ran a quick errand to Walgreen's - Holly had a small stain on her dress and we were sent to get a Tide pen. So off we went, me in my dress and Jeff in his tux, and we headed to the detergent aisle. There, a woman who was probably about 75 or 80 asked us we worked there. We politely told her no, wondering what kind of uniforms she thought Walgreen's employees wore these days. I barely made it out of the aisle before I burst out laughing.

(Tim and I with the newlyweds, Ryan and Holly)

The wedding was beautiful, and it was a great occasion to get the family together. We had a blast at the reception - it was so good to see Tim's parents, brother, one of his nephews (the other nephew and our sister-in-law had to stay home because the nephew was feeling under the weather), and alllll of the aunts, uncles and cousins. They'd all been able to get together for another family wedding the month before, but I hadn't been able to attend, and it was the first time I saw them since OUR wedding.

After the wedding, we all pretty much crashed at Jeff and Allison's again. The next morning, much of the aunt/uncle/cousin contingent got together for one last group meal at IHOP.

(Jeff and Tim map out football plays while waiting for breakfast)

Then, Jeff, Tim and I headed off to downtown Cincinnati for the Bengals/Ravens game. Thanks to Jeff's connections, we had some awesome seats, and although I will always be a Steelers fan, it was nice to watch Tim's team get a win, especially against a division rival.

(Our seats were awesome!)

After the game, Tim and I drove to Columbus to drop off our rental car and meet up with my sister and brother-in-law for dinner. We spent the night at their place, and as Marti and I planned a rendezvouz with our mother for the next day, Tim and Jeff plotted a way to take advantage of a unseasonably warm November day and go golfing.

(It's not a trip to Columbus without a game of poker.)

The next day, Marti and I met up with our mom for lunch halfway between Columbus and Louisville. Tim and Jeff golfed, and then Tim flew back to Florida. After our lunch, Mom took me to Louisville, where I spent a few days hanging out with family and friends.

(I always make Doug take self-portraits with me)

(Meeting up with some of my favorite girls!)

I even got to meet the new baby of my college roommate, Kristine. Baby Joey was adorable and oh-so-well behaved!

(Baby Josephine)

Whew! (And sadly, this is pretty typical of our trips to Ohio. Trying to cover both sides of the family and state, trying to visit with several groups of friends, spending quality "down" time at home, etc.)

It was a great trip, and it was awesome to see so many different people and have some busy times and some down times. And we couldn't have asked for better weather!