Ohio's blogs will probably be mostly full of pictures, so if you saw my facebook album, you're not missing too much- but if you're here for a run down of what our week in Ohio on vacation was like, you're in luck!
Sunday we met Nathan and Blair for lunch. I met Nathan in high school, and he married the very awesome Blair. They're always a must see on my trip, I'm just waiting for them to come visit us- it's just right down the road, guys! I mean all you have to do is take I-75.
After Peyton, Hayden and I had lunch with the Eberly's in Bowling Green, we went pottery painting in Fremont. I had a friend whose daughter was selling gift cards for a fundraiser, and so I got one thinking this would be a fun thing for the boys to do.
The best part? No 'studio fees' like they charge down here! Peyton picked out a dragon to paint.
Hayden picked out a robot piggy bank.
Here's his all finished before it was fired.
Peyton worked a long time on his. Here it is before it was fired.
I took them to the dollar store, they were looking for swords to play with, and while we didn't find those, we did find a couple of things to keep them occupied.
They played outside a lot at my mom's house, the weather was so nice! They took all kinds of random toys: their dollar store stuff, a frisbee, some hacky sacks mom had gotten at a math conference; and made up a game with all those items having special powers. I didn't quite understand it, but they had a blast.
We also pulled out the slip n slide from last summer.
Sunday night we had dinner out on the deck at the boy's request.
Calib got back on Monday evening, and they played outside until it got dark. (Notice Calib with the Feathersword- I hear that was the most powerful weapon of all)
Monday morning we got up and headed out to the Toledo Zoo with mom, she has a grandparents pass so all the kids got in for free! We met up with one of my friends some high school, Kristi, and her two kids (Kristi is a total super mom, you might remember her from when we helped them out with their year long state project they have going on)
First up, we got to see the new Penguin encounter- and we got to be there for feeding time.
It's a pretty cool habitat, maybe even better than the one we have at Lowry Park (Swaptemeber is coming up, I can't wait to hit the zoo here!)
A couple of quick picture stops..
And then we got to see all kinds of monkeys, apes, and gorillas. (I wish there was less of a glare- but they were right up to the glass, and it wasn't crowded at all, so the kids got to get right up to them!)
The kids part at the zoo is super cool, and a must visit for sure.
(This is apparently Hayden's octopus face, fyi)
Peyton of course wants a guinea pig now.
I love this picture of all the kids in the beehive. Mikayla in the middle of lots of boys (I know how she feels!)
We stopped by to see the new Flamingo exhibit too.
Our last stop before heading out was to see the Polar Bears. The boys always like seeing them since we don't have them in our zoo.
We also had a nice picnic lunch with the Gatchel's before heading home.
Thanks to Kristi for driving from Michigan to meet us, I sincerely hope we can make it a yearly event! (Her kids are adorable by the way, and even though we have quite the age gap they got along well!)
Mom took the boys to the gift shop before we left to pick up a souvenir. Such spoiled kids, I tell ya!
When we got back to mom's house we started working on some of our fair entries. I wasn't sure how into the fair the kids would be, but I got them lots of tags to see what they wanted to try out.
There was more slip n slide fun.
And Peyton did some flower arranging.
Calib worked on his marshmallow creation, and making a cool container for one of his flower arrangements.
And Hayden made a Mountaineer out of vegetables.
Such nice weather, another dinner on the deck was in order.
Then mom took us out for ice cream at a local Fremont place called 'I Scream Larry's'
I maybe should have gotten Hayden a cup instead of a cone. (But, he's a little boy, he's supposed to get messy, right?)
Monday evening Calib kept working on fair entries. He really got into it, and used almost all his tags for Flowers, and Baking.
Monday night all the entries were ready to go to put into the fair on Tuesday morning.
Tuesday morning we went to the opening ceremonies at the fair, checked our entries in, and then went over to the art building to check how their entries did, since those had already been judged. Hayden got a third on his melted crayon art work.
Calib got an honorable mention on his panda picture.
Then it was time to visit the animals. I think the boys would have spent all day in the barns.
Calib picked out his favorite goat, meet Lulu.
And Hayden found the one sheep in the whole sheep barn that didn't run away from him.
We checked out some of the veggies, including the 500 pound pumpkin!
I've always been a fan of the tallest sunflower competition.
Then we went to see the rabbits and the birds. Calib's worst nightmare was walking between the turkey cages.
We had lunch at the best place to eat at the fair (and they also have the BEST lemon shake-ups)
We walked around a bit, and went to the log cabin to check it out.
Calib was too tall for the doorway. I however, had no problem.
We came home in the afternoon for a little more slip n slide.
Then we had dinner at one of my favorite places in Fremont: Chuds! The Chud Spuds are the best thing ever.
After dinner, I drove to Columbus to get Asa from the airport. He was supposed to fly into Detroit but his flight was delayed and he wasn't going to make his connection. At least Southwest was willing to change his ticket so he could arrive Tuesday night instead of Wednesday afternoon without any charge.
On Wednesday morning we went to the fair to check out the boys flower entries to see if they had won anything. Now, we were pretty sure they'd get something since they were most unopposed (when I used to enter as a kid, there was at least 10 other entries, so sad!). Some they had one other person who entered, but for the most part we were pretty sure they had won something.
Hayden's Mountaineer won first.
Hayden's terrarium won first
Hayden's Idaho flower arrangement complete with potatoes won first too.
Peyton's one and only flower arrangement won first. Hayden was in a different age group, but Peyton and Calib were in competition with each other.
Calib's arrangements got first and second.
He got another first, and was the only one to enter in all three categories- setting him up pretty good for the second show. Flowers get two shows because otherwise the building would look pretty sad with a lot of dead flowers by Sunday.
We showed Asa the boys ribbons in the art building. Hayden had entered a bunch of art, but only won with his crayon.
Calib entered a pencil drawing, but he didn't win anything either.
Peyton had lots of competition in his age group for his panda picture, and didn't win either. I thought about it after the fact- but he should have entered a dip kiss picture in the people category. He's taken some really cool ones of those! I guess there's always next year.
Another lunch at the fair, we ate so much not-so-good for you food on vacation this week we've got to load up on the fruits and veggies to make up for it!
This time though, we had Asa with us- which made it so much better!
We had plans to head to Toledo in the afternoon, but the boys wanted to visit the animals again before we left the fair.
We made it to Toledo around 2 o'clock and visited with my grandma. We got to show her Peyton and Hayden's photo books from their evaluations, and she really enjoyed looking at them.
Asa doesn't get to see grandma often, so it was nice we were able to fit in a visit.
We got back into Fremont for dinner, and Asa had picked the Pizza Palace, a local pizza buffet place for dinner.
When we got back to mom's house, Hayden worked on his dish garden for the second flower show. The theme was Montana. I thought he did a pretty good job.
The boys went to see a movie Wednesday evening (they're SO much cheaper at Fremonts big four-screen movie theater), and mom and I ran over to the fairgrounds. My mom works on the points for the flower shows- and she had to post the results of the first show. Each ribbon you get is worth a certain amount of points, and then if you have the most points in your age group you get a trophy. She had to go post them in the flower building, so I went along. Hayden led in the artistic for kids 6-10.
Calib led in the artistic for kids 11-16.
We couldn't resist stopping for a milkshake to split at the 4-H booth.
Thursday morning the boys had to work on their arrangements for the second show. Since we were headed to Cedar Point, we wouldn't be there to put them in on Friday for judging- but mom stayed behind to do that for us.
This is Hayden's fairy garden.
Here is his Montana arrangement.
And here is his Nebraska arrangement.
Calib knew he had the trophy pretty much wrapped up, since he had such a head start on the first show. He made all three arrangements for the second show too.
Peyton also decided he would make all three arrangements for the second show.
I thought his Georgia one was cool (he had the idea for the peaches!)
After we had put those all together, we headed out to Sandusky (stay turned for the next blog)
Next Up: Cedar Point
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