labor day weekend... pt. ii

so saturday morning we were up bright and early, gathered our stuff, and headed off to our favorite vacation breakfast location... IHOP! yeah... big fans! didn't get any pictures of amy, the girls... or myself chowing down on fresh and fluffy blueberry pancakes, potatoes and some super omelet with steak inside. mmmmmm.

and have you ever noticed that IHOP has the best orange juice on the face of the planet? crazy.

post-breakfast... somewhere in the middle of our food-coma we arrived at king's island and met up with rebecca, sarah, wendy and ken who drove down from columbus to meet us. we made it in the gate pretty early.. and were off to the nickelodeon kids zone!

i'd have to say that king's island has an aaaaah-mazing kids park! pretty much rides adults would normally ride... just scaled down to their size. first we hit the swings. avery, rebecca and sarah were in line instantly. livi... not so much. she decided she just wanted to watch.

after the swings, rebecca and sarah wanted to go ride a roller coaster. i was a little unsure on how either avery or liv would feel about a roller coaster. but peer-pressure is a beautiful thing. avery decided she was up for the challenge. livi... again... not so much.




avery took it like a champ grabbing the front seat with rebecca. she even had her arms up on the first hill! the pix are hilarious! the dazed look on her face afterward said it all!



next up was the merry-go-round. great pictures of the girls!




then off to the whip. i used to love the whip! we used to go to kennywood park near pittsburgh each year in school... and the whip was one of those old rides that would just sling the crap out of you. but in a good way. needless to say all of the girls loved it! in fact we ended up going back a couple of times throughout the day to ride again and again.




after a trip over to the water park to cool off... we made it back to the kids zone for a ride on the kiddie off-road cars and the test-drive track.




we finished up the day with one of the only real "line-waiting" rides that we encountered. scooby doo's mystery machine riding... laser tag shooting... something or other was pretty fun for all of us! and... it provided one of the best photo-opps of the day. a perfect cap to an amazing day!

the ride back to columbus was filled with a nice sunset... sleeping kids... and even a stealth dairy queen drive through for amy and i. :) sweet!

HAPPY 3RD BIRTHDAY LIV~~!!!!!

preparations are underway for a party of epic proportions! the date has been set. the family has been put on alert. we'll be gathering with family in pennsylvania on saturday to throw a party that harkens back to our true western-pa heritage....

we're gonna light a big friggin fire!

much fun to go around!

labor day weekend... pt. i

amy and i decided that this year for labor day we were going to go somewhere. you know... sort of like a real vacation! sort of. for weeks we checked out websites... airline prices... hotel prices... areas of the country... cripe... even areas just in ohio! we talked about taking a trip back to chicago to spend some time tooling around the city.

back when amy was very early on in our pregnancy with avery, we took a trip to chicago. like August/September 2002 bc. [now it's referred to in the Bible as BC. and my good friend, and pastor, aaron would try and tell me differently... but i think it means before kids. sure the "c" and the "k" don't really match up, but i have a feeling that just has something to do with the translation from like, ancient hebrew to english.] this trip was so long ago that we had one of those crazy 'old fashion' cameras, that still used film. (gasp!) which means no pix unless i do some serious scanning!

so we thought about chicago... then decided against the two of us, a 3 and a 4 year old urban hiking around the windy city. we looked into the lake-towns of michigan, which were REALLY nice! almost did that. in fact... might be our next trip. but ultimately we decided on something a little closer to home... and planned a two-part trip around the cincinnati area.

we took off friday morning and drove through cincy into kentucky... headed for a GAP distribution center outlet that we had heard about from friends for the past few years. the place turned out to be a goldmine! especially since it also meant old navy and banana republic stuff too!

after the obligatory run through the store to the restroom with two... count them... two kids in various stages of potty-training... i was able to wrangle avery off in a cart to look at some "guys stuff" while livi, as usual, attached herself to amy's side. avery and i bounced aroud the store for a while, found a few things... and made our way back over the section where the other half was looking. and this is what i saw...

liv doesn't normally have the patience to hang out and shop... but let me tell you... there was something special going on at the gap outlet that day!

so needless to say, we took advantage of the girls interest in trying sweaters and backpacks on and were able to get some actual shopping done. and since the outlet had mostly ridiculous deals on everything... we hardly spent!

ok... so we spent a little... but we got a TON OF STUFF!

after looking around for the better part of 90 minutes... and waiting out a monsoon that was blowing rain sideways outside, we were able to pile into the car and grab some dinner. not sure if it was a bad night... or just us... but Carrabba's Italian Grille wasnt' all that it had been cracked up to be the only other time amy and i had eaten there. oh well.

headed back to the hotel earlier than we would have if it would just have been the two of us. but we wanted to take advantage of the free pool! and since we had been promising it to the girls for much of the week... they were ready for some serious pool time! wish i would have had the camera for this! avery and olivia jumping off the side of the pool into our arms. swimming (doggy paddling) all over the place... they had a blast! and good for us... tired out. so the first ever hotel slumber party commenced with the two double beds we had so luxuriously reserved.

ended up getting a pretty good night's sleep. good thing too... cause and we were really in for it with the saturday we had planned!

more to come in part ii...

blog envy...

so i've been tooling around with design elements for the blog. in case you haven't checked this thing out... there are like 600,000 different little whistles and bells that you can add to a blog! and i'm like light years behind the "mom's group!" i'm having some issues with the width of the columns (too thin) and i've of course got an obsessive-compulsive issue with the colors. (i've gone through a few different color schemes thus far)

in case you haven't checked them out... or are interested in who amy and the girls spend most thursday mornings with... you can see a list of blogs to the right from a & o's neighborhood gang. and yes... i officially have "blog envy."

working on new posts and pictures now.