August Road Trip #1

August has been so much fun--we have made some great memories! We left for Ohio on a Wednesday afternoon and drove until we got there Thursday morning. The kids and dogs did great and slept all night while we drove. Joey, thank goodness, is an excellent night time driver (thanks to those midnight shifts back in the day)!

I made Koa some felt activities for the drive...here he is making a rainbow.

Malia and her ducky.

Snoozin' boy!

When we finally got to Grandpa and Grandma's house--16 hours later--we were inside when Katie noticed Kimo was walking into furniture and walls. Joey took him in the mud room to give him some water and he started flopping around like a fish out of water. Food and water bowls were flying everywhere! We ended up taking him to the vet and the best we came up with was he has some kind of neurological condition that is stress induced. The doc gave us some valium to give him and that seemed to work...thank goodness!




Kimo wanted to sit in our laps while we waited on the vet...Joey and I had been up for 27 hours at this point!


The weather was fabulous! We enjoyed cool mornings and comfortable afternoons.

Koa loved the northern bugs...this little fuzzy caterpillar was bald in the middle by the time he was done playing with him!

Koa and Oakley busy sucking up bugs with their bug vacuums.

Joey enjoying a cup of coffee in 60 degree weather! Woohoo!

Katie took us to this great splash pad across from where she lives. The kids loved it!

Big girl walking!

Koa loved it!

Indiana State Fair

We drove to Indiana and rode a train to the state fair. Koa loved all of the animals!

We enjoyed hearing my dad's stories from his childhood when he visited his grandfather's farm!

This calf was 22 hours old!

Koa and Oakley were excited for their pony ride!

His first pony ride...

He loved his pony, Starbucks!

Koa and Oakley enjoyed a few rides.

Malia had a good time looking at animals too...and napping!

Love this one!

So glad Ashley captured this moment of all four grandchildren looking out the train window!

The whole family! <3

Hanging out at the house!

The little ladies! Malia and Delaney actually played together...it was so precious!

Koa and Oakley had so much fun hanging out!

Yellow Springs, OH

Joey and I went to Yellow Springs for a little late anniversary celebration. After hiking at one of the parks, we stumbled across a winery (our first winery experience), enjoyed some lunch, music and the jailhouse bed and breakfast! Great trip!

Winery

The owner is a retired dean of the school of engineering at Wright State where Katie goes now. We enjoyed talking to him and hearing how he got into the whole wine making business!

And all of his wine was really good! :)

Lunch at the second oldest restaurant in the state of Ohio...Ye Old Trail Tavern

Joey took this picture of the barefoot kids..."no shirt, no shoes, no service" definitely does not apply to this little town! It was normal to see people walking into restaurants and shops barefoot!

We enjoyed some live steel drum music while we ate lunch!

The Jailhouse Suites

This is where we stayed..we got to walk to lunch and dinner!

They did such a great job remodeling this place!

Joey thought it was funny that I had to walk barefoot to the car...he said I was fitting in already!

Delicious organic breakfast!

There is yarn knitted around some of the trees and telephone poles!

We really enjoyed our little getaway...and Yellow Springs was a lot of fun. Lot's of great memories from our 5th anniversary! :)

My DIY Guy

Our driver side window stopped going up and down in our Expedition. Joey ordered a new part and had it shipped to my parent's house--using Dad's collection of tools worked out great!

Broken cable.

After a few hours, our window is working great. Joey saved us about $320 by doing it by himself! Woohoo!

We said our goodbyes after a week of enjoying our time with our family. It's always hard to say goodbye, but we sure did make some great memories. The older the kids get, the more fun it is!

On the road again! Next stop: Greenville, South Carolina!

Malia getting a little workout in on the luggage cart.

What, Mom?

Koa was swinging on the bar as Joey pushed them down the hall!

 So, our original plan was to order pizza and let the kids swim before we go to bed and get up and finish our drive the Jacksonville the next day. We saw that our hotel was pretty close to downtown and there was some live music going on. We made it down there in time to hear a couple of songs before we continued walking to find a park on the river. Well...they were having a Wailers concert and this lady handed us four tickets to get in! We had so much fun dancing to "Three Little Birds!" Koa was playing his I don't want to take a picture game...he was actually enjoying the concert! :)

We ate dinner at a little sports bar downtown.

Love that we cut up Malia's little kid burger and she grabs the other one that's not cut up and takes a bite of that one! Silly girl!

 Next leg of our trip: Greenville to Jacksonville!

Cookie sheets worked perfect as trays for them to eat and do activities on!

Koa remembered that Mr. Chris and Miss Jenn let him hang on the luggage cart at Disney when Joey and I ran the marathon!

Good job, Koa!

Joey spent two days at his Level 1 certification for crossfit and we played. I was pretty impressed with Koa's ability to push Malia through the buffet line while I got our food!

Malia, our climber!

Koa got a bug net--and everything went in the bug net!

We enjoyed a day at the beach with Hotch and his wife, Brooke, and their friend. Koa was asleep before I even pulled away from the beach!

We found Friendship Fountain the second day of Daddy's class! Beautiful!

Malia's first Frosty from Wendy's! Yum!

Took the kids and dogs to the park once it was time to check out of the hotel and Joey was still in class. Three hours to burn...and Kimo gets too stressed and starts falling over. I put everybody back in the car and shoved some valium down his throat! That did the trick and the kids took a nap while the dogs calmed down!

So, our next stop was Petsmart...somewhere ALL of us can go and enjoy air conditioning! Ha!

Everyone was happy...even Kimo! Poor guy!

 What a great trip! We really enjoyed our time (even all of the miles and hours in the car)! And the kids did great! Oh, and Joey is officially certified as a Level 1 Trainer! Woohoo! Congrats, Babe!

We pretty much stayed at the house this week as we recovered from our vacation...but, here are some pictures!

Koa got a butterfly habitat...we are waiting for the caterpillars to get here in the mail so we can watch them become butterflies!

We ran to the park so the kids could play and then went to the farmers market for produce and gas station for milk. I couldn't bare the put them in the car even to drive them down the road, so we did our errands in the stroller!

And this big girl is fearless!

What, that was nothin'!

She kept having me put Koa's super hero mask on for her!

He calls me out the screen lanai to show me the lizard he caught all by himself...oh my!

So proud of his new friend...I love that he wants to release his bugs (and lizard, in this case) three minutes after he catches them!

He informed me that he married his kitty. And the black band had something to do with it...

Making a tree

Trying on Mommy's hat.

He wanted "coffee" with breakfast, so he got milk in his coffee cup!

Koa is really becoming good buddies with his dogs. He posed them and asked me to take their picture.

Naia had this string hanging from her claw. Koa went and got his doctor kit and took care of it for her.

He actually got the string off with his toy scissors.

Layla and Olivia came over for the evening...Layla was a super hero and she had a couple of sidekicks!

And we had a streaker during Layla's "rock on" concert! These kids crack me up...love them all!