Wednesday night we traded cars with my Dad and packed up for our trip to visit the Hanlon's (my sister Amy, Uncle Paul and the cousins Lisa and Walt). We thought it best to take a car without 100,000+ miles or born in the 90's, so those 2 criterion knocked out both our cars as options. Luckily the rents are better off and my Dad traded the 2012 4Runner for the 1999 Sable. Yeah, traded a car with a touch screen for a car with a tape deck, no CD player (not that anyone uses those anymore). You're a hell of a negotiator, Dad.
It was, of course, raining when it was time to pack the car Thursday morning. Also no surprise, we packed so much that we were lucky to get it all in the car. Luckily I'm a man and worked that luggage puzzle like a pro. Although since I brought up being a man, I will admit Kristin drove the entire trip. It rained the entire trip there, every second, every state. She claims to get car sick, so she wouldn't let me drive. I wonder if she knew how much of a pain shotgun is with two kids in the car. I constantly had to hop around and tend to all their little needs. Super pain.
Anyway, we left Thursday morning around 8:15 a.m. to first spend a night in Cleveland. We figured we would check out another City since we were going through all the effort of packing up the kids and the car and making the drive. The plan was to get to Cleveland around 5, let the kids swim at the hotel and burn off some energy and afterwards we would turn in for a nice full night of sleep before exploring Cleveland the next day. Ha. How wrong we were.
Our first stop along the way was Valparaiso, IN where we took a very long and needed break hitting up Target for some supplies and Figure Eight Brewery for a Growler (and just in case I needed a roadie). Luckily the kids napped for some of the ride. We also stopped around Toledo and let the kids stretch their legs at a Bass Pro Shop, which is a pretty awesome store.
Despite taking much longer than necessary due to long stops, my only complaint on the way there was the tolls. I thought they were incredibly expensive. $7.10 at one in Indiana and $10.50 in Ohio, plus others. They also make getting on and off the highway a huge pain.
We finally arrived in Cleveland around 7:30 p.m. It seemed too late to let the boys swim so instead we explored the hotel and let them run around.
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| Hotel sleeping was terrible. Cole actually did great but Henry kept climbing out of his pack and play and crying |
The weather in Cleveland sucked, so we didn't do much there. We went to the West Side Market, ate breakfast and walked around. The market is cool, but super crowded and impossible to walk through with a double wide stroller, so after a moment of frustration we navigated our way out at the nearest exit and went back to the car. Then we drove to Willard Park near the Lake, saw the World's largest rubber stamp and that was about it. We planned to do much more, but it was windy and cold, so getting everyone out of the car for a short stroll seemed like too much work. We drove around and compared their lakefront to the Milwaukee lakefront, saw the football and baseball stadiums and called it done. Total bust.
On to New Albany (Columbus area), home of the Hanlon's:
It was nice to finally see one of Amy and Paul's houses. They move a lot. The kids had a lot of fun together, mostly Cole. I think he enjoyed Lisa and Walt more than they him, but everyone got along and played nice. Well, except for Henry. Nobody liked him much. His terrorizing way of play and destroying things didn't always go over well. He put on quite a show for us adults for awhile though, with his running around, falling over and just generally acting wild. He kept everyone on their toes with his constant risk taking behaviors.
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| Note Kristin's shirt. This will likely be in all photos. I don't think she took this smelly sweatshirt off once, even though she packed a full suitcase of clothes. |
On Saturday we made it into Columbus. Again the weather sucked, so it was cut shorter than I would have liked, but I'm sure we'll be back. We did go to the North Side Market (yep, we love markets). We got some delicious ice cream at Jenni's. Cole went with banana and Kristin and I got salty caramel. Henry was sleeping (finally!) so he got nothing.
A big trip negative was the sleeping. Both boys went to bed somewhere around 9:00 p.m. every night which is a big difference from their usual 7:00 p.m. bedtime. Henry woke up at 4:50 a.m. on Saturday morning (which was really 3:50 a.m. WI time) and about 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning. This was made much worse by Cole waking up with night terrors during the nights. We had to have him sleep with us and he flops around a lot and kept waking Kristin and I up. Saturday night he was screaming super loud around 11:00 p.m. After about 20 minutes or so, he finally told us that he had a "snort" in his tooth, so we gave him a cup of water and all was well. I just wish he would have told us he had a snort in his tooth from the beginning. We managed to squeeze in a few good hours of uninterrupted sleep, but not nearly enough.
On Sunday morning, Lisa made us her special pancakes for breakfast, which were delicious and we were off. The drive home was uneventful, so I will spare you the details.
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| We did stop at Starbucks and Quiznos, hence sparing you the details |
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| Yep, sweatshirt still on. |
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